Council
adopts Recommendation on strengthened cooperation against vaccine-preventable
diseases.

Although
vaccination programmes are the responsibility of the Member States, the
cross-border nature of preventable diseases means that it is beneficial to
better coordinate EU interventions and approaches to preventing or limiting the
spread of epidemics and diseases with a cross-border dimension. Furthermore,
vaccines are one of the most effective and cost-effective public health
measures developed in the 20th century.

The Recommendation states
that:

Member
States should consider developing vaccination plans at national level aimed at
increasing vaccination coverage and achieving a 95% vaccination coverage rate
by 2020, especially for measles.

The
Commission is addressing the issue of insufficient vaccine coverage as a result
of cross-border movement of people within the EU and is considering whether a common
vaccination passport can be developed for EU citizens.

The Recommendation was
preceded by a corresponding Proposal
from the European Commission on the
subject, which we reported on in our article from May 2018. High-quality health care is only possible through increased
cooperation between all relevant health authorities, the vaccine industry, the research
sector and healthcare providers. In his State of the Union address in 2017,
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for action to combat
preventable diseases.

Road
map for the future

The
Council’s comprehensive Recommendation has created a policy framework for strengthened
cooperation at EU level in the area of vaccination. Accordingly, the Commission
has announced a meeting of various stakeholders in Brussels on 4 March 2019 to
form a ‘Coalition
for Vaccination’.

Incidence
of diseases rising

The
Recommendation was drawn up because of gaps and inequalities in the immunisation
of EU citizens, as well as increasing numbers of new infections of preventable
diseases. According to the European
Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s (ECDC) January 2019 Report,
a total of 8,949 confirmed cases of measles were reported in the EU/EEA for the
period December 2017 to November 2018, with the highest number of cases
registered in France, Greece and Italy. The rate of vaccination against
seasonal flu outbreaks was well below the target of 75% for older people,
according to the ECDC report.

Reasons
for these developments include low vaccination uptake and vaccination scepticism
in parts of the population, but also because of production and supply
bottlenecks of vaccines and rising costs of new vaccines. Different levels and
developments in the national healthcare systems of each country also
contributed to the growing problems.